How to Set Up Black Friday Discounts in Shopify: Automatic, Tiered and Free Gift

To set up Black Friday discounts in Shopify, go to Discounts, click Create discount, and pick the type that matches your offer: Amount off products, Amount off orders, Buy X get Y or Free shipping. Use an automatic discount for the public sale, a code for VIP early access, and set Combinations and Active dates before you save.

Shopify's native discounts cover most BFCM offers without an app. The gaps are specific: free gifts are not added to the cart for the customer, and automatic discounts do not show a crossed-out price on product pages. This guide walks through each offer, the settings that break most often, and when an app is worth it. The offer decision itself comes first, in our Black Friday discount strategy guide, and both sit inside the BFCM 2026 playbook.

Which Shopify discount type should you use for each Black Friday offer?

Shopify has four built-in discount types, per its discount types overview and combinations guide. Each one can be a code or an automatic discount. Here is how common BFCM offers map to them.

One rule before you start. Shopify's combinations guide says a discount's type and method cannot be changed after you save it. If you pick the wrong one, you delete it and build it again. Decide on paper first.

How do you set up an automatic sitewide discount in Shopify?

The steps, from Shopify's amount off discounts article:

1. Go to Discounts, click Create discount, choose Amount off orders.
2. Pick Automatic discount and enter a title. Shopify shows this title to customers in the cart and at checkout, so write "Black Friday: 25% off", not "BF26-auto".
3. Under Discount value, choose percentage and enter 25.
4. Leave Minimum purchase requirements off for a true sitewide sale.
5. Set Eligibility to All customers.
6. Under Combinations, tick shipping discounts if you also run free shipping.
7. Set Active dates: start Fri Nov 27, 2026 at 12:00 AM, end at your published end time.

Dates follow your store's admin time zone, per the same article. If your store is set to Pacific time and your emails say "midnight Eastern", fix one of them.

The alternative is compare-at prices. Shopify's sale pricing article explains that compare-at prices show a crossed-out price on product and collection pages, while automatic and code discounts show savings only at checkout unless you add an app. If shoppers need to see the sale on the product page, compare-at prices or a discount display app are the options.

How do you create tiered discounts in Shopify without an app?

Shopify's discount types page sends tiered and multi-step logic to discount apps. You can still build simple spend tiers natively with one automatic discount per tier.

1. Create an Amount off orders automatic discount: $15 off, Minimum purchase amount $100.
2. Create a second: $30 off, minimum $150.
3. Create a third if you need it: $50 off, minimum $200.
4. In Combinations, leave order discounts unticked on all three.

This works because of how Shopify resolves conflicts. Its combinations guide says that when discounts cannot combine, Shopify applies the best discount for the customer. A $160 cart qualifies for tiers one and two and gets $30 off.

Two limits to plan around. A store can have a maximum of 25 active automatic discounts, including app-based ones. And minimum purchase amounts count product prices only, not shipping or taxes. Show the next tier in the cart ("Add $22 to save $30") so customers know where they stand.

How do you set up a free gift with purchase in Shopify?

Use Buy X get Y. The steps from Shopify's Buy X get Y article:

1. Discounts, Create discount, Buy X get Y, method Automatic discount.
2. Under Customer buys, choose Minimum purchase amount and enter $75, with the qualifying products or collections.
3. Under Customer gets, set quantity 1 and pick the gift product.
4. Under At a discounted value, choose Free.
5. Tick Set the maximum number of uses per order and enter 1.

The catch: Shopify states the free or discounted item is never added to the cart automatically. The customer must add it. You have three options:

• Put the gift on the landing page with a clear "Add your free gift" button.
• Add a cart message once the threshold is met.
• Use an app that adds the gift to the cart for the customer.

Stock matters too. If the gift's inventory reaches zero, it shows as sold out. Hold back enough units for Cyber Monday, and have a second gift ready. Note that on plans below Shopify Plus, products in a Buy X get Y discount cannot get further product discounts.

How do you set up a VIP early access code in Shopify?

Early access runs Tue Nov 24, three days before the public sale. Use a code so only invited customers get it.

1. Create an Amount off orders discount with method Discount code. Name it something short, like VIP25. Avoid special characters, which Shopify's discount codes article says can break the checkout URL.
2. Under Eligibility, choose Customer segments and pick your VIP segment.
3. Under Maximum discount uses, tick Limit to one per customer.
4. Set Active dates from Tue Nov 24 to the end of the public sale.

Then make it one click. Open the discount, click Promote, then Get a shareable discount code, per Shopify's managing discount codes article. The link applies the code and saves it to the customer's cart. To land on your sale page instead of the home page, add ?redirect=/collections/black-friday after the code in the link.

Use that link in your VIP email. Our Klaviyo early access email guide covers the send itself.

How do Shopify discount combinations work for BFCM?

Every discount belongs to one class: product, order or shipping. Combinations decide what stacks. From Shopify's combinations guide:

Shopify applies product discounts first, then order discounts on the new subtotal, then shipping. A customer can use up to 5 product or order codes and 1 shipping code per order.

Two settings cause most BFCM support tickets:

• Free shipping minimums. Shopify's free shipping article says discounted items count toward the minimum at their discounted price only if that discount can combine with free shipping. Tick shipping in the Combinations section of your sale discount.
• Social checkouts. Combinations work on the Online Store, Storefront API and Shopify POS. They do not work on external checkouts such as Facebook, Instagram or Google.

What should you test before Black Friday goes live?

Run test orders for every scenario by Fri Nov 20. Your real discounts are scheduled for later, so test with copies that start today, then delete the copies.

Use @example.com email addresses for test customers, as Shopify recommends. The rows below assume the example offers from the first table.

Also check what customers see in the cart. Shopify shows "Discount couldn't be used with your existing discounts" when codes conflict. Decide whether your welcome code should combine with the sale, and say so on the site.

When do you need a Shopify discount app for Black Friday?

Native discounts are enough for most brands. Add an app when you need one of these:

• Crossed-out prices on product pages for an automatic discount, without editing compare-at prices.
• A free gift added to the cart without the customer clicking.
• Tiers inside one discount, or more than 25 automatic discounts at once.
• Volume pricing like "buy 2, save 10%; buy 3, save 20%" with progress bars.

Install and test any app by mid-November, not on Thanksgiving. Then build the page that presents the offer, covered in our Shopify Black Friday landing page guide. For checkout-level fixes, see the Shopify checkout optimization guide, and for post-purchase offers, the post-purchase upsell guide. Note that Shopify's automatic and code discounts do not apply on the post-purchase page.